20min. Torture Week (and other goofy off season challenges)

Training
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Just wondering if anyone else fills their “Off Season” with goofy, self made, challenges like this. My season ends Labor Day weekend with the Green Mountain Stage Race, and the 28 week cycle for this race doesn’t start again till mid February. This leaves 24 weeks to mitigate fitness loss so I don’t have to start from absolute zero. Last year I did the “Disaster Day” challenge and I plan to do it again this year. I’ve also stumbled across the “8DC” trainer stage race and plan to finish up my off season with the 2013 version of it this year. Most recently (this week) I’m trying to do all the variations of the “Galena” workout in one week. Started Monday with Galena -2, and I’ll wrap up Sunday with Galena +4. If I can tough my way thru the block it will result in (21) 20min. intervals, hence the name 20min. Torture Week.

Does anyone else have little, unofficial, self-made TR challenges for the off season? I figure its a timely discussion, and could help other users fill the dead space between training seasons with fun challenges instead of doing a maintenance plan or not riding and losing all the summers hard earned fitness.

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I think that this is a great idea, though I’m not sure Galena would be my workout of choice :sweat_smile:
I’m signing up for Disaster day as well. Hadn’t seen the 8DC workouts, I might need to make room for them over Christmas.

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I love this and I have also filled my calendar with a few amazingly awesome rides/ workouts:

  1. I’ve got disaster day (May add on a few %s)
  2. The Zwift über pretzel loop once forward and then backwards in one go on January 11th. Also in January the four horsemen forward and backwards in one go.
  3. My disaster day +1 workout in February
  4. Self supported indoor eliminator Triathlon in March. Essentially it’s 3 consecutive sprint tris where if I’m 90s off my previous time from the previous tri I have to quit.
  5. I like the sounds of Galena
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Disaster, of course. I also hit the Zwift Gran Fondo series (I do some as long/easy rides and some as “races”) depending on my immediate goals.

I have also toyed with a Virtual Everest run on Zwift, but not sure I really want to spend 12+ hours on the bike in a day…

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Count me in!

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Ha, that could be good painful ride to “share” as well. I am worried about motivation and the pure pain of that much saddle time on a trainer. Even with a rocker, it will be an issue.

One “cheat” for the Alpe du Zwuft (which would be my choice) is the option of hopping off the bike on the down leg to stretch, eat, take nature breaks, and even change kits along the way. It’s 8.5 rounds on the climb, IIRC.

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